The Giants have made it clear that centerfield is the team’s first priority this offseason and that they are particularly looking for a defensive upgrade.

We can argue about if that’s the most prudent offseason priority until our faces go blue and we all lose 98 games (for the record, I believe the Giants’ offseason priority should be to find a way to add 50 or more homers to the team — a priority that should be all-consuming), but that’s where the Giants are going.

The name that will, should, and has come up first when it comes to filling this vacancy is former Kansas City Royal and soon-to-be free agent Lorenzo Cain.

I can’t see Cain wearing black and orange next year, though.

(Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images)

Yes, he’d be a perfect fit in San Francisco, but there’s too much baggage around him (not personally — this is collectively bargained baggage) for the Giants to commit to signing him this offseason. At the very least, it’d be an imprudent usage of the Giants’ funds and assets.

Cain is viewed as a top target for the Giants because he’s a strong defender: He posted the fourth-best UZR (23.6) over the last three years; according to MLB’s StatCast, he produced 15 outs above average last year (outs made when the probability of a catch is 50 percent or less); and he played home games in a cavernous center field, like the one at AT&T Park, posting the third-best RngR number (a component of UZR that estimates the number of runs a player saves, or surrenders, due to his range) in baseball over the last three years (30).

Cain can also hit — he had a slash line of .300/.363/.440 last season.

So, he’s the only center fielder on the free agent market with a plus glove, plus bat, and plus speed. Makes perfect sense for the Giants to sign him, right?

Not so fast.

Cain is entering his age-32 season and should command at least $17 million per season over four or five years on the open market. Adding that kind of money is going to make it difficult for the Giants to avoid going into the luxury tax again in 2018, which would cause them to pay 50 cents on every dollar they spend over the $197 million payroll threshold. (The Giants’ payroll is at $159.5 million before arbitration hearings — adding another $15 million-plus player would certainly put them over.)

There are players worth paying that kind of tax to acquire — Giancarlo Stanton, for instance, would likely be worth it by virtue of ticket sales alone (not to mention all those home runs). Cain will upgrade your outfield defense (for now) and he’s a nice hitter, but he’s not going to change your lineup. Is it worth it to go effectively “all-in” on him?

I don’t think so.

Add in the fact that the Royals extended a qualifying offer to Cain and you compound the problem for the Giants — the new Collective Bargaining Agreement states that teams that were in the luxury tax last season (as the Giants were) have to forfeit their second- and fifth-best draft picks to sign players that were extended qualifying offers. They’d also have to forfeit $1 million in international bonus pool money.

(Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

So, to sum that all up: to sign Cain for his post-prime age 32 to 36 seasons, the Giants would likely have to pony up more than $70 million and forfeit a few significant draft picks (which the on-the-edge Giants can’t afford to lose right now) as well as some valuable international bonus pool cash, and it’d probably put them in the luxury tax, which would likely prevent them from adding any more big-money players this offseason.

What could go wrong?

Cain is a strong player, but he carries too much baggage — again not his fault, he’s by all accounts a great guy — for the Giants.

Still, the Giants are looking to upgrade in center, starting with defense.

As such, they should take a look at these options:

Billy Hamilton

(Photo by Jamie Sabau/Getty Images)

The Reds speedy center fielder is perpetually on the trade block and this winter should be the time that he finally leaves Cincinnati.

Hamilton is the fastest player in the National League and has the second-best UZR (20.9) and RngR (11) in baseball over the last two seasons. Per StatCast, he had 10 outs above average last year. He’s as good of a bet as Cain — if not better, considering that he’s nearly five years younger — to improve the Giants’ outfield defense. [Cain had only one five-star catch (probability zero to 25 percent of an out) last season — perhaps a sign he’s slowing down — Hamilton had three.]

Now for the downside: Hamilton is a terrible hitter. He might steal bases (he’s averaged 58 per season over the last three years) but he has a sub-.300 career on-base percentage and a strikeout rate that’s three times his walk rate.

But the Giants don’t need home runs — they seem to abhor the idea of playing the modern game — and AT&T Park might prove liberating to a player without power, like Hamilton.

I don’t know what the Reds are asking for Hamilton, but I can’t imagine it’d take anything too significant to trade for him — again, he’s a terrible hitter.

But he won’t cost the Giants anything close to what Cain will and he will provide the defensive center field upgrade the Giants are clearing prioritizing, leaving cash available to go get the power bats the team needs.

Jarrod Dyson

(Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images)

Speaking of solid defenders with speed who can’t hit a lick, Jarrod Dyson is a free agent — the Giants wouldn’t have to give up any assets to land him.

While the back of Dyson’s baseball card looks good — he had a respectable .271/.342/.388 slash line last year — but he’s unplayable against lefties, having posted a career line of .215/.291/.259 against them.

If it really is just about defense for the Giants, Dyson is a cost-effective upgrade, he’s posted seven outs above average in each of the last two seasons.

Juan Lagares

(Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images)

This guy can play some center field. In 94 games last year, he posted seven outs above average. He, like Hamilton and Dyson, can’t hit (career OPS-plus of 84), and he would need to be acquired from the Mets via trade, but he’s the most cost-effective player on this list, with two years left on his deal at $15.5 million total (with a third-year club option of $9.5 million). And seriously, he has a great glove.

Kevin Kiermaier

(Photo by Brian Blanco/Getty Images)

The Tampa Bay Rays are looking to cut payroll down to $70 million, which means everyone is on the table for a trade, even Kiermaier, who is one of the best defenders in the game (12 OAA last year) and hit .276/.338/.450 last year. Kiermaier signed an extension through 2023 last March which will pay him only $5.5 million next year (it tops out at $13 million in 2023 — what a deal for the Rays) so it’s hard to believe he’d be moved.

This is the pipe dream scenario: I don’t have even a suggestion of how the Giants could entice Tampa into sending one of the best center fielders in the game, with one of the best contracts in the game, to San Francisco. I had to bring it up though — Kiermaier is awesome.

Denard Span

(Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images)

He was a league-average hitter last year with a league-average glove *two years ago* (an original version of this story said last year — that was so, so, so wrong and I should have trusted my gut).

I know this Giants team wants to move on from him, but you could do worse than Denard Span for one year, you know…